


February Words #22: Garage

by StaringAtTheTwinSuns



Series: February Words (2018) [21]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Cliche, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hoth, Mechanics, Millennium Falcon - Freeform, Multi, Plotless, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Sad Leia, Sorry this prompt just didn't inspire me at all bleh, This is really boring, pre OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 13:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaringAtTheTwinSuns/pseuds/StaringAtTheTwinSuns
Summary: Leia's feeling down, and Han and Luke decide to cheer her up the best way they know how... fixing the Falcon?Part of my February prompt series, which is MOSTLY OT3 goodness, but this one's more just kind of canon friendship?  No need to read the others in the series to understand this one.





	February Words #22: Garage

**Author's Note:**

> So.... this is what happens when I get a prompt that doesn't inspire me at all. I also know nothing at all about mechanics and am just sort of improvising based on what we see in the movies. Not horribly proud of this one, but, in the spirit of a fic a day, I WROTE A FIC TODAY. That, I suppose, is something.

~2 ABY~

Leia came so close to forgetting, sometimes, that Alderaan was truly gone.

Most of the time, it was easy to think that she was just offworld, on a mission. She’d been away from home so long, even before, that it still felt, when she wasn’t thinking of it, like her parents and friends and everything she knew were still there, just out of sight. Still there, waiting.

The strangest things would remind her, really. That what seemed so there in the corner of her eye disappeared when she looked at it head-on.

Sometimes it was a comment, someone’s nostalgic reference, or something more concrete, about the war. Sometimes it was a sound. A smell. A fleeting invisible something.

Sometimes it was just a thought in her own head.

Take today. It had been nothing, really. A story she’d thought her father would have wanted to hear. And everyone was probably wondering why she’d practically run out of the debriefing. And what she was doing now, here.

The hangar was loud and noisy, mostly. So many people and droids rushing around that she could stand in the middle of all of it and still be alone.

Or at least, she thought she could.

"Hey there, Princess."

Leia hated herself, just a little, for the way Han's words made her feel. They weren't supposed to make her feel better. Nothing was supposed to do that, least of all his misguided--she told herself firmly--attempts at flirtation.

"Good afternoon, Captain."

Her voice was as icy as the walls of Echo Base around them. Good. She wanted it that way. If she didn't get close to anyone, then no one could ever hurt her. No one could leave her, if she was alone.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" Han flashed her a smile that was probably supposed to be smooth, but Leia just rolled her eyes.

"I'm supervising the maintenance work on the speeders," she snapped. It wasn't true. She didn't know the first thing about snowspeeders and Han, for all his puffed-up bravado, probably knew it. But what was she supposed to say? _I reminded myself that my entire family got blown up by the Empire, and silence makes it worse, so I came to the noisiest place I could think of to be alone_?

"Uh-huh." Han nodded. Of course he didn't buy it. "Well, uh... I could use some help. Since you're here."

"Well, actually..." Leia scrambled to think of a reason why she couldn't. "I think I have to--"

"Come on." He lowered his voice and--to Leia's surprise--took her hand. Gently. "I know you're upset," he said. "I don't know why. But it helps, sometimes, to get your hands dirty?"

"I don't..." Leia started, but a voice from atop the _Falcon_ changed her mind.

"Han! Hey, Han." Luke ripped off a pair of oversized safety goggles and looked down at them. "Leia?"

"Leia?" Han looked from Luke to Leia.  "Already moved beyond 'Your Highness,' have we?"

Leia rolled her eyes for what felt like the millionth time.  "I was just telling Captain Solo here that I'm not upset. And that even if I were, it wouldn't help..."

But she was starting to think that it might.

"Fine," she said.

Han glanced at Luke. Luke glanced at Han, and the two of them shared a smirk that threatened to turn into a laugh.

"I'm helping you because you obviously need it," Leia stressed. "Not because I want to. Or because I'm upset." She directed this pointed last to Han, who shrugged.

"All right. Get up there. Grab a hydrospanner. Show us what they teach in Royal Mechanics 101."

Leia didn't know how to to justify the irrational thrill that the anger that bloomed within her made her feel.

At least Luke was here. He was sane, at least. Most of the time. And sweet, at least, all of the time. Which is more than anyone could ever say for Han.

"Give me that," she said, with more anger than she really intended, and Luke held out the hydrospanner like she was about to bite.

Leia sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Luke shrugged. "If there's anything you want to talk about...?"

Leia didn't. Not now. Not even to Luke, even though he might understand. Instead, she took the spanner, and stood as close to him as she dared, and said. "No. Just show me what to do."

And just like Han knew how to push all her buttons, Luke knew how to turn them back off. He put his hand over hers, showed her how to hold the spanner, and said "Here. Turn this. A little more."

She did. It took all the strength she had, but the effort she put behind it felt good.

"Okay, now hold this down."

Leia did.

"Han, get up here!" Luke shouted down into the _Falcon_ , and then Han came up and stood on her other side.

She was half expecting him to make some joke, about how her pretty hands were going to get calloused (They already were) or how the grease was going to ruin her clothes (Alliance snowsuit, already streaked with icy mud).

But instead he just put his weight against the panel, and said, "All right, kid, you got it?"

And they held it down, together, while Luke welded it shut.

"It's kinda crooked," Han said when they were done.

"It's fine," Luke protested back.

Leia just stood there, smiling even though it still didn't feel like she should.

"Hey, Luke." Han put a hand on his shoulder, and brought his mouth so close to Luke's ear that watching the two of them almost gave Leia inappropriate chills. "Why don't you go get Her Highness some water?"

"I'm not thirsty," Leia protested.

"Go on, go."

Han looked her up and down in a way that actually didn't make her feel that uncomfortable. It was more like he was examining a broken part of his hunk of junk ship.

"You feel better now, don't you?"

Leia looked away. "A little. What would you know about it, anyway?"

"I know some stuff." Han's voice was soft, and quiet. "Not about having my whole planet destroyed, but. I know some stuff, all right? It helps sometimes, to do something with your hands, you know? And there's plenty needs fixing on the _Falcon_."

"You and Luke come out here a lot." She meant it to sound like a question.

Han shrugged. "He lost stuff, too. You know."

As if on cue, Luke crawled out of the hatch with a moldy-looking bottle. "The only thing in the galley was this." He thrust it at Han with a look that made Leia laugh out loud.

"There we go," Han said. "That's what we want to hear, right, kid?"

Luke nodded, but he looked away, like something about the question made him shy. "It does help," he said. "To fix things. To make things. You should... join us?"

He probably didn't mean that as a question.

But there was only one answer.

"Okay," Leia said. "I'll do that sometime."


End file.
